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Landowners cash in on wind farms

SOME of Scotland’s richest landowners are preparing to share in a £200m wind farm bonanza.

Nicholas Oppenheim, the leisure tycoon, heads a list of 20 lairds set to cash in on the switch to green energy by allowing their land to be used to house hundreds of giant turbines.

Oppenheim, 57 — ranked 751st in The Sunday Times Rich List with an estimated £45m fortune — will earn about £30m from a wind farm on his Eisgein estate in Lewis.

He recently unveiled plans to erect 133 turbines each 125m high and capable of generating 2.7 megawatts of electricity. He has pledged to divert the profit from 33 of the turbines to benefit the local community but will still receive more than £1m a year over the 25-year lifespan of the wind farm.

John Dalrymple-Hamilton, owner of the Bargany estate in Girvan, is set to share in a £13m windfall when the